Chart Industries Inc. makes a northern trek

Chart Industries Inc. of Garfield Heights, which makes cryogenic equipment for producing and storing liquified hydrocarbon and industrial gases, has broken ground on a $23 million expansion in New Prague, Minn., that will add 80 jobs.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reports that Chart plans to expand production of cryogenic equipment used for transporting and storing natural gas as a refrigerated liquid, according to a news release from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

For the New Prague expansion, the state of Minnesota “gave Chart a $500,000 loan that is forgivable as long as at least 80 jobs are created,” the newspaper reports. The state also is providing $725,000 in assistance from two other programs.

Chart at present employs 468 people in New Prague, up from 338 about 18 months ago. The additional 80 jobs will bring total employment at Chart in New Prague to 548 workers. Of the new jobs, 60 will be welding positions with wages and benefits starting at $18 an hour, the Business Journal reports.

The company clearly has a thing for Minnesota.

Last December, the newspaper notes, Chart announced plans to open a 141,000-square-foot plant in Owatonna, Minn., that would make parts for the same end-product manufactured in New Prague. Chart said the Owatonna plant would create 100 jobs.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration issued a forecast in which it projects “average household expenditures for heating oil and natural gas will increase by 19% and 15%, respectively, this winter (October 1 through March 31) compared with last winter.”

Projected household expenditures are 5% higher for electricity and 13% higher for propane. Average expenditures for households that heat with heating oil “are forecast to be higher than any previous winter on record,” according to the agency.

The forecast “primarily reflects a return to roughly normal winter temperatures east of the Rocky Mountains compared with last winter's unusual warmth.” According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's most recent projection of heating degree days, the Northeast, Midwest, and South “will be about 2% warmer than the 30-year average (1971-2000), but still 20% to 27% colder than last winter,” the agency estimated.

Warming up to climate change

You're coming around on global warming.

That's the conclusion of this survey from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which finds 67% of Americans say there is “solid evidence” that the earth's average temperature has been getting warmer over the past few decades. That's up four percentage points since last year and 10 points since 2009.

“Similarly, an increasing proportion say that the rise in the earth's temperature has mostly been caused by human activity,” according to Pew. “Currently, 42% say the warming is mostly caused by human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, while 19% say it is mostly caused by natural patterns in the earth's environment. Last year, 38% mostly attributed global warming to human activity and in 2010 34% did so.”

There continues to be a substantial partisan divide on this issue.

About 85% of Democrats say there is solid evidence that the average temperature has been getting warmer, up from 77% last year and similar to levels in 2007 and 2008, Pew reports.

For Republicans, though, just 48% say there is solid evidence of warming. However, that is up from 43% last year and 35% in 2009.